City Europe
Florence
Florence is a city in Italy. A river flows through it. Its big church has a giant dome that rises high above the city.
Florence is the capital of Tuscany, a region of Italy, on the Arno River. It began as a Roman town in 59 BC and became the heart of the Renaissance, a time of new ideas in art and building. Its old center, with a famous dome and a bridge lined with shops, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Florence, capital of Tuscany, grew from the Roman colony of Florentia (59 BC) into a merchant city and, under the Medici in the 15th and 16th centuries, a center of the Renaissance. Its historic center, 505 hectares inside the line of its 14th-century walls, was inscribed by UNESCO in 1982. ISTAT counted 361,705 residents on 1 January 2025.
Photo: Marek Slusarczyk, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover Florence
Florence is a city in Italy.
The Arno River flows through the middle of it. Green hills are all around.
Florence is the capital of Tuscany, a region of Italy. The Arno River runs east to west through the city, and many bridges join its two banks. Hills surround it on every side.
Italy's statistics office, ISTAT, counted 361,705 people living in the city on 1 January 2025. Every year many visitors come to see its old buildings, paintings and statues.
Florence, the capital of Tuscany, lies in the valley of the Arno, which bisects the city from east to west; UNESCO notes that its setting among the Tuscan hills has stayed essentially unchanged for centuries.
ISTAT's count of residents on 1 January 2025 was 361,705. UNESCO lists mass tourism, traffic pollution, a falling number of residents in the historic center and the risk of floods among the pressures on the World Heritage site, and its 2006 management plan sets emergency measures for floods.
- Country
- Italy (capital of Tuscany)
- Residents of the city (ISTAT, 1 January 2025)
- 361,705
- Roman colony of Florentia founded
- 59 BC
- Historic Centre, UNESCO World Heritage Site
- since 1982 (505 hectares)
A great dome, a bridge of shops and a gallery of masterpieces
Florence's big church has a huge round roof called a dome. It was built with bricks, a long, long time ago.
An old bridge over the river has little shops all along it.
Florence's cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, was begun in 1296. Its giant dome was finished in 1436 by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi. It measures 180 feet (about 55 meters) across, and National Geographic calls it the largest brick-and-mortar dome in the world. Brunelleschi built it without supports underneath.
The Ponte Vecchio, which means "old bridge," is a bridge from the 1300s that crosses the Arno, lined with shops. Nearby, the Uffizi building, designed by Giorgio Vasari and built from 1560 to 1580, is famous worldwide for its collections of paintings and ancient sculptures.
Arnolfo di Cambio drew up plans for a new cathedral in 1296. In 1418, with the base of the dome finished, the cathedral works launched a competition, and in 1420 Filippo Brunelleschi's proposal was approved: an octagonal double-shell dome raised without supporting frameworks, using hoists he designed with cogs, shafts and a reversible gear. The dome, 180 feet across and rising to 374 feet, was completed in 1436; its lantern, built to his design, was placed in 1471.
UNESCO singles out the Ponte Vecchio, a 14th-century bridge lined with shops, among the merchant city's surviving works. The Uffizi, built between 1560 and 1580 to Giorgio Vasari's design, houses paintings by Giotto, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Caravaggio, and ancient Roman sculptures collected by the Medici family.
- Dome of the cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore
- completed 1436 by Filippo Brunelleschi; 180 feet (about 55 m) across
- Ponte Vecchio
- 14th-century bridge lined with shops
- Uffizi building
- built 1560–1580, designed by Giorgio Vasari
From a Roman town to the cradle of the Renaissance
Long ago, the Romans built a town here. It grew into a rich city of traders and bankers.
Later, many famous artists lived and worked in Florence. They painted pictures and carved statues that people still visit today.
Florence was built where an Etruscan settlement had stood, and in 59 BC the Romans founded a town here called Florentia. In the Middle Ages it grew into a rich city of merchants and bankers, and in the 1300s it was surrounded by new walls.
In the 1400s and 1500s, under the powerful Medici family, Florence became a center of the Renaissance, when artists and architects such as Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo worked here. In the 1800s, Florence was for a time the capital of Italy.
UNESCO traces Florence to an Etruscan settlement and to the Roman colony of Florentia, founded in 59 BC; its description of the center includes the "quadrilatero romano" around today's Piazza della Repubblica. From the 14th to the 17th century Florence was an economic and political power in Europe, and its bankers and princes filled it with palaces such as Palazzo Rucellai, Palazzo Strozzi and Palazzo Pitti.
UNESCO credits Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio with defining the artistic principles of the Renaissance there from the beginning of the 15th century, and notes that Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were formed in the Florentine milieu. In the 19th century, while Florence served as the capital of Italy, parts of the city were transformed.
- Roman colony of Florentia
- 59 BC, on the site of an Etruscan settlement
- Medici period of economic and cultural pre-eminence
- 15th and 16th centuries
- City walls
- 14th century
The great flood of 1966
Once, after many days of rain, the river rose and flooded the city.
Helpers came from near and far to clean up the mud. People called them the "mud angels."
After ten days of heavy rain, the Arno burst its banks on the night of 3–4 November 1966. Water and mud poured through the streets of Florence. In the Santa Croce neighborhood, a plaque on a wall shows how high the water rose: 4.92 meters.
When the water went down, the city was left under thick mud. Volunteers from all over Italy and other countries came to help. They became known as the "mud angels."
Italy's Civil Protection Department describes how, after ten days of heavy rain, the Arno flooded upstream on the night of 3–4 November 1966 and a wave about three meters high swept through Florence's streets. With no monitoring network, the flood was not announced in advance. A plaque in via dei Neri, in the Santa Croce district, marks the highest level: 4.92 m. When the river retreated on 6 November, it left about 600,000 tonnes of mud.
Firefighters, police and the armed forces were joined by volunteers from across Italy and abroad, the "mud angels." The disaster showed the need for a national emergency system, and in 1970 Law 996 set out a framework for civil protection and recognized volunteers' work for the first time.
- Arno flood
- night of 3–4 November 1966
- Highest water mark (via dei Neri, Santa Croce)
- 4.92 m
- Italy's law on relief in disasters
- 1970 (Law 996)
Trams to the airport and the hospital
Florence has electric trams that run on rails in the street.
One tram line goes all the way to the airport.
Florence's modern trams started in February 2010. The first line, T1, ran 7.4 kilometers from Santa Maria Novella, the main railway station, out to the town of Scandicci. In 2018 it was extended to the hospital at Careggi.
A second line, T2, opened in 2019 and links the city with Peretola airport. In 2025 it was extended to Piazza San Marco, and the head of the company that runs it said the ride from the airport to the historic center takes about 35 minutes.
Florence's tramway, run by Gest, opened in February 2010 with line T1 from Alamanni-Stazione (Santa Maria Novella) to Villa Costanza in Scandicci, 7.4 km. A 4.1 km extension to Careggi-Ospedale followed in July 2018, giving a route of 11.5 km.
Line T2 opened in February 2019 from Unità to Peretola airport (5.3 km). An extension from Fortezza to San Marco-Università, about 1.8 km with six more stops, opened in early 2025; the EU Urban Mobility Observatory reports that T2 carried 11.5 million passengers in 2024. Construction of a third line, T3, from Libertà to Bagno a Ripoli, began on 25 January 2025.
- Tram line T1 opened
- February 2010 (Santa Maria Novella station to Scandicci, 7.4 km)
- Tram line T2 opened
- February 2019 (to Peretola airport, 5.3 km)
- T2 passengers in 2024
- 11.5 million
Hot summers and rainy autumns
Summer in Florence is hot and dry.
Winter is cool. Autumn brings the most rain.
Florence has hot summers and cool winters. The World Meteorological Organization's averages for 1971 to 2000 give July and August days of about 31 °C. In January, days average about 11 °C and nights about 2 °C.
July is the driest month, with about 37 millimeters of rain. Autumn is the wettest season: November gets about 114 millimeters.
WMO normals for Florence (1971–2000) give average highs of 31.4 °C in July and 31.5 °C in August, with lows near 17.7 °C; January averages 10.9 °C by day and 2.0 °C at night.
Rainfall sums to about 873 mm a year. It falls to 36.7 mm on 3.5 days in July, then rises through autumn to 104.2 mm in October and 113.6 mm in November, the wettest month; April is a smaller spring peak at 86.4 mm.
- January, average daily high and low (WMO, 1971–2000)
- about 11 °C and 2 °C
- July and August, average daily high (same period)
- about 31 °C
- Rain in a year (sum of the monthly averages)
- about 870 mm
Galleries, palaces and gardens
Florence has many museums full of paintings and statues.
It has old palaces and a big garden. The city's sign is a lily flower.
Florence is full of museums. UNESCO names the Uffizi, the Bargello, the Pitti Palace, the Archaeological Museum and the Galleria dell'Accademia among them. UNESCO also lists the Pitti Palace with its Boboli Gardens.
Part of the cathedral group is Giotto's bell tower, about 280 feet (85 meters) tall. The lily is Florence's emblem, and the cathedral's name, Santa Maria del Fiore, refers to that flower.
UNESCO lists the city's museums (the Archaeological Museum, Uffizi, Bargello, Pitti and Galleria dell'Accademia) alongside its great buildings: the cathedral with its baptistery and Giotto's bell tower, Piazza della Signoria with Palazzo Vecchio, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce, San Miniato and the convent of San Marco with paintings by Fra Angelico.
Florentines, UNESCO notes, have kept traditional building materials such as pietra forte and pietra serena, plaster and fresco. The lily is the city's emblem; National Geographic notes that the cathedral's dedication, "St. Mary of the Flower," refers to it. Giotto's bell tower, completed by Francesco Talenti, rises 280 feet.
- Museums named by UNESCO
- Archaeological Museum, Uffizi, Bargello, Pitti, Galleria dell'Accademia
- Giotto's bell tower
- 280 feet (about 85 m) tall
- Florence's emblem
- the lily
Florence on the map
Find Florence on the globe.
It is in Italy, in Europe. Italy is shaped like a boot. Florence is in the top half of the boot.
Florence is in central Italy, in the region of Tuscany. Find the Arno River: the city sits on both banks, with hills all around.
The old center, the part protected by UNESCO, fits inside the line of its medieval walls and covers 505 hectares, about 5 square kilometers.
Florence lies at about 43.8° N and 11.3° E, in the Arno valley, ringed by the Tuscan hills. The 505-hectare historic center is bounded by the remains of the 14th-century walls, with surviving gates and towers and two Medici fortresses: da Basso (St. John the Baptist) to the north and the Belvedere among the hills to the south.
The Arno crosses the city from east to west, and a series of bridges, among them the Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Santa Trinita, link its banks.
- Latitude
- about 43.8° north
- Longitude
- about 11.3° east
- Setting
- on the Arno, surrounded by the Tuscan hills
Amazing facts
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Florence's great dome was built without props holding it up from below.
Filippo Brunelleschi promised to build Florence's dome without supports underneath, and he did it, layer by layer, finishing in 1436.
Brunelleschi won the dome commission by proposing to raise it with no supporting framework; he also designed hoists with cogs, shafts and a reversible gear, later studied by Leonardo da Vinci.
-
An old bridge in Florence has shops on it.
The Ponte Vecchio, from the 1300s, is a bridge lined with shops.
UNESCO counts the Ponte Vecchio, a 14th-century bridge lined with shops, among the surviving works of medieval and Renaissance Florence as a merchant city.
-
After a big flood, helpers called mud angels came to Florence.
After the Arno flooded Florence in 1966, volunteers from Italy and other countries came to help. People called them the "mud angels."
The 1966 flood left about 600,000 tonnes of mud; Italy's 1970 civil protection law, which answered the lack of a national emergency system, was the first to recognize volunteers' work.
-
The lily flower is the sign of Florence.
The lily is Florence's emblem, and the cathedral's name, Santa Maria del Fiore, means "St. Mary of the Flower."
Santa Maria del Fiore, "St. Mary of the Flower," takes its name from the lily, Florence's emblem.
Words to know
- Renaissance
- a time in Europe, starting in the 1400s, of new ideas in art, building and learning
- dome
- a round roof shaped like half a ball
- colony
- a town set up by people from another place, who keep ties to their homeland
- gallery
- a building or room where works of art are shown
- flood
- when water overflows onto land that is usually dry
- emblem
- a picture or symbol that stands for a place or group
Discovery challenge
-
Florence is in which country?
Florence is the capital of Tuscany, a region of which country?
Florence, capital of Tuscany, served for a time in the 19th century as the capital of which country?
- Spain
- Italy
- France
Show the answer
Italy
Italy! Florence is in Italy.
Italy. Florence is the capital of the Tuscany region.
Italy; UNESCO notes the 19th-century changes made while Florence was the capital.
-
Which river flows through Florence?
Which river flows through Florence?
Which river, which flooded on 3–4 November 1966, bisects Florence?
- The Arno
- The Thames
- The Nile
Show the answer
The Arno
The Arno! Bridges cross it.
The Arno, which runs east to west through the city.
The Arno; its 1966 flood reached 4.92 m in Santa Croce.
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Who built the giant dome of Florence's cathedral?
Which architect finished Florence's great dome in 1436?
Whose 1420 design raised Florence's double-shell dome without supporting frameworks?
- Filippo Brunelleschi
- Giorgio Vasari
- Christopher Columbus
Show the answer
Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi. He built it with bricks.
Filippo Brunelleschi, who built it without wooden supports underneath.
Filippo Brunelleschi; Vasari designed the Uffizi more than a century later.
-
What is special about the Ponte Vecchio bridge?
What lines the Ponte Vecchio, the old bridge over the Arno?
What does UNESCO say lines the 14th-century Ponte Vecchio?
- Trees
- Shops
- Waterfalls
Show the answer
Shops
It has shops on it!
Shops line the bridge.
Shops: UNESCO calls it a 14th-century bridge lined with shops.
-
Who helped clean up Florence after the 1966 flood?
What were the volunteers who helped after the 1966 flood called?
By what name are the volunteers from Italy and abroad who helped Florence in 1966 remembered?
- The mud angels
- The river knights
- The rain keepers
Show the answer
The mud angels
The mud angels! They cleaned up the mud.
The mud angels, volunteers from Italy and other countries.
The "mud angels"; Italy's 1970 civil protection law was the first to recognize volunteers' work.
Nearby places
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Landmark
Florence Cathedral
Florence Cathedral, called Santa Maria del Fiore, is the great cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was founded in 1296, and its enormous dome, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, was built from 1420 to 1436 without a wooden frame to hold it up while it was built. It is part of the Historic Centre of Florence World Heritage Site.
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Landmark
Leaning Tower of Pisa
The Leaning Tower is the bell tower of Pisa's cathedral, in Italy. Building began in 1173, and the tower started to lean while workers were still on its second floor, because soft ground lay under shallow foundations. It is 58.36 meters tall, has seven bells and 273 steps, and engineers made it safe between 1990 and 2001.
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Landmark
St Mark's Basilica
St Mark's Basilica stands on St Mark's Square in Venice, Italy. The church you see today was begun in 1063 and dedicated in 1094, and for nearly a thousand years it was the chapel of the doges, the rulers of Venice. It has 8,000 square meters of gold mosaics, which is why it is called the Church of Gold. Since 1807 it has been Venice's cathedral.
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City
Venice
Venice, in northern Italy, is spread over 118 small islands in a shallow lagoon off the Adriatic Sea. There are no cars in the old city: people walk or travel by boat along its canals, past palaces and over about 400 bridges. High tides sometimes flood its squares, so giant gates now protect the lagoon.
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Grand Canal (Venice)
The Grand Canal is the main waterway running through the city of Venice, in Italy. About 3.8 kilometers long, it curves through the city in a backward S shape, lined with houses and grand palaces. Four bridges cross it, including the Rialto Bridge.
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Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums began in 1506, when Pope Julius II displayed a collection of ancient sculptures in a courtyard. Over the centuries, popes added the rooms painted by Raphael, Michelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel and a 120-meter Gallery of Maps. The museums call themselves 'the Museum of Museums'.
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St. Peter's Basilica
St. Peter's Basilica, in Vatican City, is the church of the popes and a place of worship for Catholics. Building began in 1506 and took more than a century. Bramante, Michelangelo, Maderno and Bernini all helped design it, and 800 workers raised its great dome in just 22 months.
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Castel Sant'Angelo
Castel Sant'Angelo stands beside the Tiber River in Rome. The Roman emperor Hadrian had it built in the 2nd century AD as a tomb for himself and his family. Later it became part of the city walls, a fortress, a home for popes and a prison. Since 1925 it has been a national museum.
Explore next
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Country
Italy
Italy is a country in southern Europe on a long peninsula that reaches into the Mediterranean Sea, often described as shaped like a boot. The Alps rise in the north, the Apennine mountains run down its length, and about 58.9 million people (2026) live there. Its capital is Rome.
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City
Rome
Rome, the capital of Italy, grew from huts on a hill beside the Tiber River into the center of a huge ancient empire. About 2.7 million people live there today (2023), among ruins such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon.
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City
Venice
Venice, in northern Italy, is spread over 118 small islands in a shallow lagoon off the Adriatic Sea. There are no cars in the old city: people walk or travel by boat along its canals, past palaces and over about 400 bridges. High tides sometimes flood its squares, so giant gates now protect the lagoon.
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City
Milan
Milan is the second city of Italy, a center of business, fashion and design on the flat Po plain in the north. It began about 600 BCE and was a Roman city called Mediolanum. Italy's statistics office counted 1,365,698 residents on January 1, 2025.
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Landmark
Florence Cathedral
Florence Cathedral, called Santa Maria del Fiore, is the great cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was founded in 1296, and its enormous dome, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, was built from 1420 to 1436 without a wooden frame to hold it up while it was built. It is part of the Historic Centre of Florence World Heritage Site.
- Watch Geography What is a World Heritage Site? World Heritage Sites are places so important that they belong, in a way, to everyone. Under a 1972 agreement, countries nominate their most outstanding places, experts check them, and a UNESCO committee decides. By 2026 the list held 1,273 sites: cultural places like the Taj Mahal, natural places like the Galápagos, and mixed ones like Machu Picchu.
- Watch Geography Rivers from source to mouth A river is fresh water that flows downhill, pulled by gravity. It begins at a source, such as a spring, melting snow or a lake. Smaller streams called tributaries join it along the way, so it grows bigger, until it empties into a lake, a larger river or the ocean at its mouth.
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City
Naples
Naples is a port city in southern Italy, on the Bay of Naples, with the volcano Vesuvius rising to the east. Greek settlers founded it as Neapolis, the "new city," in 470 BC, and its old center is a World Heritage Site. About 909,000 people lived in Naples at the start of 2025, making it Italy's third-largest city.
For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Locate Florence in Tuscany, central Italy, on the Arno River.
- Explain what the Renaissance was and name some artists and architects who worked in Florence.
- Describe how Brunelleschi built a huge dome without supports underneath.
- Explain how a city prepares for floods, using the 1966 Arno flood as an example.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Brunelleschi kept his building methods secret. Why might an inventor keep secrets, and why might sharing ideas be better?
- Volunteers came from many countries to help Florence after the flood. Why do you think people help a place that is not their own home?
- Florence has many visitors but fewer people living in its old center than before. What might change in a neighborhood when more visitors than residents are there?
Try at home or in class
- Build a dome without props: stack sugar cubes or small blocks in rings, each ring a little smaller than the one below, and see how high you can go before it needs support.
- Make a bridge of shops: lay a ruler across two piles of books and line it with small boxes for shops. How much can it hold?
- Draw your own city emblem: Florence uses a lily. Choose a plant or animal that stands for your town and design it.
Key vocabulary: Renaissance, dome, colony, gallery, flood, emblem
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Natural Earth vector data , Natural Earth (NACIS) (Public domain)
- Resident population by age, sex and marital status on 1 January 2025 (municipalities) , ISTAT, Italian National Institute of Statistics
- Historic Centre of Florence , UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- This Renaissance superdome took more than 100 years to build , National Geographic
- The Uffizi , Gallerie degli Uffizi
- The flood of Florence , Italian Civil Protection Department
- Firenze (Florence) tramway , UrbanRail.Net
- Florence expands sustainable transport network with tram extension , EU Urban Mobility Observatory (European Commission)
- Florence: climatological information , World Meteorological Organization, World Weather Information Service
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated November 1, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.